arning there, who was an intimate
friend of mine, he said that my face appeared much fairer and smoother
when he looked on me from the ground than it did upon a nearer view,
when I took him up in my hand and brought him close, which he
confessed was at first a very shocking sight. He said he could
discover great holes in my skin; that the stumps of my beard were ten
times stronger than the bristles of a boar, and my complexion made up
of several colors, altogether disagreeable; although I must beg leave
to say for myself that I am as fair as most of my sex and country, and
very little sunburnt by travels. On the other side, discoursing of the
ladies in that emperor's court, he used to tell me, one had freckles,
another too wide a mouth, a third too large a nose; nothing of which I
was able to distinguish. I confess this reflection was obvious enough;
which, however, I could not forbear, lest the reader might think those
vast creatures were actually deformed: for I must do them justice to
say, they are a comely race of people; and particularly the features
of my master's countenance, although he were but a farmer, when I
beheld him from the height of sixty feet, appeared very well
proportioned.

When dinner was done, my master went out to his laborers, and, as I
could discover by his voice and gesture, gave his wife a strict charge
to take care of me. I was very much tired and disposed to sleep, which
my mistress perceiving, she put me on her own bed, and covered me with
a clean white handkerchief, but larger and coarser than the mainsail
of a man-of-war.

I slept about two hours, and dreamed I was at home with my wife and
children, which aggravated my sorrows when I awaked, and found myself
alone, in a vast room, between two and three hundred feet wide, and
above two hundred high, lying in a bed twenty yards wide. My mistress
was gone about her household affairs, and had locked me in. The bed
was eight yards from the floor. I durst not presume to call; and if I
had, it would have been in vain, with such a voice as mine, at so
great a distance as from the room where I lay to the kitchen where the
family kept. While I was under these circumstances, two rats crept up
the curtains, and ran smelling backwards and forwards on the bed. One
of them came up almost to my face, whereupon I rose in a fright, and
drew out my hanger to defend myself. These horrible animals had the
boldness to attack me on both sides, and one of the